What Could the Money Tom Steyer Is Blowing On A Pointless Vanity Campaign Do If He Wanted to Accomplish Something?

Possibly the most influential way to spend such money would be in Florida. A 2018 ballot initiative in the state restored voting rights to an estimated 1.4 million people who’d completed prison terms, parole, and probation for felony convictions; a subsequent Republican-sponsored bill, though, tacked on a requirement that such individuals must alsopay all outstanding court fees, fines, and restitution penalties before they can register. This is a substantial burden in a state whose criminal justice system funds itself in the first place by nickel-and-diming defendants with a wide variety of fines and fees that few can hope to ever fully pay off. Many observers have said the requirement amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.

The available information suggests that the total owed by the estimated 1 million people affected by the new law is likely well over a billion dollars. But it’s difficult to pinpoint a total figure beyond that because there’s no central state database that tracks such debts. Still, to make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of how many people Steyer might be able to help, we can look at the plaintiffs in an NAACP and League of Women Voters’ suit against the law. Of those nine individuals, one woman is technically on the hook for $59 million in restitution for her role in an insurance-fraud case, and one man owes $110,000 for an arson conviction. Excluding them as atypical, as well as the man who’s not even sure how much he owes because the records in his cases are incomplete, we find that the other six owe an average of $1,427.54. (One example: A 33-year-old who was convicted of cocaine possession in 2008, works now at a homeless services facility in Gainesville, and owes $801 in fees, including a charge that was paradoxically imposed on him for using a court-provided attorney and claiming indigent status.)

So, instead of losing a presidential run, Tom Steyer could restore the voting rights of about 70,000 people in Florida if he wanted to.

But the President of the United States unilaterally determines all political outcomes in the United States and there is nothing else one can do to influence public policy but run for president so you can see the dilemma here. I mean, the alternative approach advocated by some people who aren’t mediocre rich white men with huge egos seems just crazy to me:

What would taking control of the United States Senate accomplish, anyway? And even if senators had any power, her campaign to win statewide election in a state won by thirty points is not narrowly tailored to appeal to Brooklyn leftists, so blah. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize here — maybe we can persuade Larry Lessig to run for president again, then we’ll really have something.